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This work uses survey data from the Portuguese Securities Market Commission (Comissão de Mercado de Valores Mobiliários – CMVM) to examine financial literacy and literacy bias. The main objective of this study is to shed light on this issue by identifying the individual characteristics that are associated with financial literacy, namely overconfidence and underconfidence, which in turn might help explain individuals' financial decisions. The study distinguishes two groups, i.e. students and nonstudents, and considers several characteristics that are usually employed in this stream of research.

The data are based on a survey conducted by a partnership between the CMVM and a consortium of Portuguese universities. This paper has a three-fold aim. First, it studies the main individual features associated with objective financial literacy. Second, it analyzes the relationship between those variables and the bias between self-perceived and objective literacy, distinguishing overconfidence and underconfidence. Third, and most originally, this framework was also used to examine the differences between students and nonstudents. Those aims are pursued using cross-sectional ordinary least squares (OLS) regressions, except for the study of the literacy bias, for which the authors use an ordered probit.

Literacy is higher in individuals of the male gender who are older, have higher incomes, live in metropolitan areas, are highly educated, have a field of study related to finance and have high self-perceived literacy. Younger people are more overconfident. Unconditionally, women are less overconfident than men, but conditionally, they overestimate their knowledge. People holding securities and with a field of study related to finance are more overconfident. The gender effect is mainly driven by students, and the impact of a field of study and of holding securities on overconfidence decreases and increases, respectively, for students. The results highlight the importance of financial education.

Due to the way that the questionnaire was made available, there is no guarantee that the sample is representative of the Portuguese general population, or, for that matter, representative of the typical Portuguese retail investors or households. Also, there is no guarantee that the same individual did not answer the questionnaire more than once, although this is highly improbable. The link to the online questionnaire was only transmitted within e-mail databases owned by the CMVM and Portuguese universities, so the authors cannot guarantee its unbiasedness.

The authors' results may help the National Plan for Financial Education (the acronym in Portuguese is PNFF) fine-tune the required actions towards different target groups and, most importantly, highlight that different groups may require different approaches aiming to narrow the gap between objective and perceived literacy. The first step should be creating procedures to provide feedback on the objective and perceived literacy of those who enroll in financial formation programs.

The study distinguishes two groups, students and nonstudents, providing additional insights that might guide policymakers on how to structure financial education to enhance individual financial behavior. This is especially important in a country such as Portugal which has the lowest objective financial literacy in the Eurozone.

This study contributes to the financial literacy literature, in particular to the stream of research that focuses on psychological biases, by shedding light on the factors associated with both individual overconfidence and underconfidence. Differentiating between students and nonstudents provides additional insights, which might guide policymakers on how to structure financial education to enhance individual financial behavior.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between consumers’ subjective and objective financial literacy (OFL) – the necessary knowledge and skills to make effective personal financial decisions – and their effects on opinion leadership and the use of retail financial services.

In total, 486 US participants were surveyed. The demographical profile of the sample roughly resembled that of the USA population.

On average, consumers with moderate levels of OFL report lower subjective financial literacy (SFL) compared to those with low or high levels of OFL. Moreover, while SFL and opinion leadership are positively correlated, consumers with moderate levels of OFL reported lower opinion leadership compared to those with high or low levels of OFL. The paper introduces financial literacy miscalibration as the discrepancy between consumers’ objective and SFL. Financially illiterate respondents who perceived themselves as financially knowledgeable reported high opinion leadership. Finally, a greater percentage of financially – literate consumers reported owning checking and savings accounts, using online and mobile banking for diverse purposes, and making fewer phone calls to customer services, compared to others.

The paper integrates literature from financial literacy, consumer knowledge, and opinion leadership to explain these findings and to further enhance our theoretical and empirical understanding of objective vs SFL.

The discrepancies between objective and SFL may significantly influence consumers’ financial decisions and the degree to which they expose themselves to the pertinent risks. The paper discusses implications for public policy makers as well as marketing managers and researchers.

The study is the first to empirically explore the research questions following the conceptual development.

This study examines the association between financial literacy confidence and financial satisfaction. The authors posit that overconfident poor performers will experience greater levels of financial satisfaction and underconfident high performers will experience lower levels of financial satisfaction.

Based on the results of an objective financial literacy assessment and a subjective financial literacy assessment, variables measuring study participants' financial literacy overconfidence and financial literacy underconfidence are constructed. The variables are analyzed for their associations with financial satisfaction.

The results from the multivariate analysis suggest that financial literacy overconfidence (underconfidence) is associated positively (negatively) with higher levels of financial satisfaction and is associated negatively (positively) with lower levels of financial satisfaction.

The discussion first highlights that to increase objective financial literacy, the disconnect between subjective financial literacy assessment and objective financial literacy must be recognized. Secondly, the discussion encourages financial literacy and education programs to incorporate behavioral education, which can provide learners with an awareness of the role of financial literacy confidence when making financial decisions.

Financial literacy overconfidence can result in an inability to recognize the realities of one's financial situation. Individuals who are overconfident in their level of financial literacy preformed lower on an objective assessment of their financial literacy, yet also tended to have a greater sense of financial satisfaction. This finding not only suggests that financial literacy overconfidence results in financial ineptitude, but also suggest that financial literacy overconfidence can result in specious conclusions regarding one's financial situation. The financial literacy underconfidence finding suggests that those who are financial literate, and who are also underconfident in their financial literacy, are less likely to have high financial satisfaction.

There is strong excitement during Ponzi schemes and financial bubble periods. This emotion causes investors to turn to “unknown and new investment instruments”. This study, the factors that made “unknown and new investment instruments” preferable to “known and experienced investment instruments” were investigated.

It was taken into account unconscious like phantasy, emotional like emotional intelligence, both affective and cognitive like financial literacy and subjective beliefs like trust and overconfidence. In addition, risk preferences were measured with four different risk variables. In this context, data were collected by online survey method between November 2020 and May 2021 with convenience sampling. First, the data were collected from 832 participants in the pilot study. Additional data were also collected using convenience sampling and online surveys, and a total of 1,692 participants were obtained. Data were analyzed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) 25 and AMOS 24.

As a result of the analyses made, the variables that lead investors to choose “unknown and new investment instruments” were determined as risky investment intention, phantasy, risk taking/risk avoidance, confidence, risk tolerance and subjective financial literacy. Trust and risk perception have a very weak effect on preferences. However, no effect of emotional intelligence and objective financial literacy was detected. In addition, a moderately positive and significant relationship was found between objective and subjective financial literacy. Subjective financial literacy was found to have a strong and significant relationship with emotional intelligence, confidence, trust, risky investment intention and phantasy.

This study investigates the factors underlying individuals' investment preferences from a broad perspective. We think that this study is unique in this structure and wide variables. We believe that the findings obtained in this manner are unique to both academics and practitioners. We also believe that the findings of the study will make an important contribution to understanding participation behavior in various Ponzi schemes and financial bubbles.

Drawing from socialization theory this study investigates the effect of financial socialization and mediating role of “attitude toward money” (ATM) and financial literacy on the financial behavior of young adults in an emerging economy.

A cross-sectional survey of 302 young adults was conducted and responses were analyzed to determine the key antecedents of financial behavior. The model was tested using OLS regression. Parallel mediation was tested using Process Macro in SPSS.

ATM, subjective financial literacy, objective financial literacy are positively associated with financial behavior. Furthermore, parallel mediation analysis establishes the role of ATM and subjective financial literacy as a mediator between financial socialization and financial behavior.

These findings have implications for both financial and academic institutions and policymakers. Academic institutions should introduce personal wealth management courses at early stages in their courses to help young adults make appropriate financial decisions. Policymakers should emphasize creating a habit of budgeting and managing expenses among young adults in addition to promoting financial literacy.

This study focuses on determinants of financial behavior in young adults and specifically, argues that involving parents to financially socialize their children have a crucial impact on subjective financial literacy and ATM which has not been explored in previous literature.

This paper aims to examine the effects of subjective and financial literacy, big five personality traits and emotions (fear, anger, hope and sadness) on risk aversion, risky investment intention and investment choices were investigated. Interactions of these three variables (risk aversion, risky investment intention and investment choices) were also examined.

For this purpose, in January-February 2019, collected data on 446 subjects from Turkey using the internet (341) and face-to-face (105) survey instruments. The authors exploited IBM SPSS Statistics for analysis. ANOVA, t-test and discriminant analysis were performed.

As a result of the analyzes, two personality traits (neuroticism and openness) and two emotions (fear and sadness) were determined as predictors of risk aversion. For risky investment intention, risk aversion, two personality traits (neuroticism and openness) and one of the same and other one different two emotions (fear and anger) were found.

Investment choices can be estimated by objective financial literature, risk aversion and risky investment intention. In addition, individuals’ risk averse or risk taking characteristics differ according to their level of sadness with agreeableness, conscientiousness and neuroticism personality traits. Similarly, have a risky investment intention or have not risky investment intention also differs according to sadness emotions with conscientiousness and openness. Finally, the choice of stocks or bank deposits varies according to subjective financial literacy and extraversion personality trait.

The aim of this paper is to help management scholars and executives learn from the COVID-19 global crisis by analyzing if and how the level of financial literacy affected stakeholders' sensitivity to corporate social responsibility (CSR) issues during the pandemic, as well as identifying whether financial literacy is an important variable to account for in the postpandemic period. The authors test the relationship between objective (measurable) and subjective (self-assessed) financial literacy, as well as financial happiness (i.e. satisfaction with one's current financial situation) with CSR during the pandemic. High levels of financial literacy cause individuals to reward companies that implement CSR strategies and processes.

The authors designed an online survey and obtained data on objective and subjective financial literacy, financial happiness and COVID-19 infections, as well as on the demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of a representative sample of 1,334 Italian respondents. From a methodological point of view, the authors perform a factor analysis on the CSR-related questions to extract the principal components (PCs) that were used as dependent variables in the regression models to analyze the effects of explanatory variables (financial literacy, financial happiness and COVID-19 infections) and consider the control variables (demographic and socioeconomic characteristics). The authors follow a theoretical approach merging stakeholder theory with CSR.

Respondents with a high level of financial literacy and financial happiness are highly sensitive to all CSR components (ethical, philanthropic, economic and legal social responsibilities). Being infected by COVID-19 increased participants' sensitivity to ethical and philanthropic social responsibility (SR), but not to economic and legal SR. The more educated and employed respondents were, the more sensitive they were to CSR, especially compared to their less educated and unemployed counterparts.

While the sample used is large and representative of the Italian population, Italy is an interesting and useful case to analyze, given that it was the first Western country to be severely hit by COVID-19; since the paper only refers to a specific country scenario, the results cannot be generalized to other countries. A cross-country comparison relating financial literacy and financial happiness to CSR during the COVID-19 pandemic period would be desirable. The research study has theoretical implications for management scholars since the authors show that, during the pandemic period, financial education and financial happiness are relevant in explaining stakeholders' greater sensitivity to CSR issues. The findings may thus help scholars to learn from the COVID-19 period, with the aim of further developing and enhancing stakeholders' theory.

The research also has practical implications, both for corporate executives and for policymakers, helping them to learn from the COVID-19 global crisis concerning the role of financial literacy and financial happiness on CSR sensitivity and, consequently, how they may consider these important variables in the postpandemic era. On the one hand, executives may improve stakeholders' segmentation and eventually modify CSR policies, considering the higher sensitivity of their stakeholders' due to a higher degree of financial literacy. On the other hand, the findings suggest that policymakers should have a stronger role in supporting employment and education in general and in promoting programs to improve financial literacy to increase stakeholders' sensitivity to CSR, thus further stimulating the inclusion of CSR factors in companies' strategies. Increasing stakeholders' sensitivity to CSR will, in turn, increase the propensity of companies to include SR in their strategies. Thus, increasing financial literacy will have tangible positive effects of increasing CSR. Given the greater role played by companies during the COVID-19 period with respect to societal risk, the findings seem particularly useful.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study represents the first that links financial literacy and financial happiness with CSR during the COVID-19 crisis. The large and representative dataset, as well as the use of specific variables related to financial literacy, financial happiness and COVID-19 infections in the CSR assessment model, makes our analysis original, robust and significant by contributing to the CSR literature and to the financial literacy literature from a methodological point of view, as well as by informing corporate executives and policymakers about the role of financial literacy with regard to CSR during the pandemic, which may help them in learning how to improve their decisions and actions in the postpandemic era.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate roles of financial literacy, financial behavior, and financial capability as mediating factors between financial education and financial satisfaction.

Data are from the 2012 National Financial Capability Study, a large national data set with detailed information on financial satisfaction, education, literacy, behavior, capability, and related variables. Mediation analyses are used to answer research questions.

Financial education may affect financial satisfaction, a subjective measure of financial well-being, through financial literacy, financial behavior, and financial capability variables. Results show that subjective financial literacy, desirable financial behavior and a financial capability index (a sum of Z-scores of objective financial literacy, subjective financial literacy, desirable financial behavior, and perceived financial capability) are strong mediators between financial education and financial satisfaction.

The study has used cross sectional data that can only document associations between financial education and satisfaction and the mediators between them. Future research could use relevant longitudinal data to verify multiple benefits of financial education.

The findings have implications for financial service professionals to take advantages of multiple benefits of financial education in content acquisition, confidence in knowledge and ability, and action taking when they communicate with their clients.

Policy makers on consumer financial education may use the information to advocate and promote effective education programs to improve consumer financial well-being.

This study is the first of this kind to examine the association between financial education and financial satisfaction and several financial capability variables as mediating factors.

The purpose of this paper is to study the influence of factors such as financial literacy on a consumer’s investment decisions, particularly in the stock market. Based on two empirical studies, the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) was used to understand stock market participation (SMP) in India while developing a model to represent the relationships between the various factors. Consumer financial literacy was conceptualised to be a part of perceived behavioural control and included in the TPB.

A mixed methods research was followed where qualitative research preceded a quantitative survey-based study. In-depth interviews were conducted with investors and experts, results of which, when combined with the literature review, revealed seven variables including financial literacy which were pooled into three distinct groups based on the TPB. Responses obtained from 506 retail investors from four cities in India were analysed. Structural equation modelling was used to test the models and arrive at a final empirical model.

Results of the study indicated that investment intention predicts actual investments in the stock market (which represented behaviour). Financial literacy – both subjective and objective – were also found to be significant influencers on intention while only objective financial literacy seemed to affect behaviour. Three variables – perception of regulator, risk avoidance, and hassle factor – were combined to form a second-order construct which was named “Attitude to Investment Behaviour”. This had a negative impact on intention to invest in the equity markets. Financial well-being seemed to have a negative impact on intention while having a positive relationship with behaviour.

The results present significant investor behaviour and policy implications for financial services marketing. Some interventions, especially in the area of consumer financial literacy, are more likely than others to help consumers bridge the gap between non-participation and participation in the stock market.

The study makes a contribution to investor behaviour theory in the form of a comprehensive model to explain SMP in an emerging market. This can be further tested across geographies.

The main purpose of this study is to investigate the investment choices' relationship with cognitive abilities, risk aversion, risky investment intentions, subjective financial literacy and objective financial literacy.

To examine the relationship, two investment choices were given to 256 subjects from Pakistan. Questionnaire had total 20 questions for measuring five variables. To review this nexus, discriminant analysis was used as to explore the depth of the nexus that is the ability of the variables to predict the investment choices.

This study establishes the findings that Investment choices are guided by risk aversion, risky investment intentions, financial literacy (subjective and objective) and cognitive abilities. The risk aversion has negative relation to investment choices and other variables depict positive relationship to with investment choices.

This study provides a new and useful understanding into the existing literature on investment choices. The results are significant as the cognitive abilities show a positive contribution to the investment choices. This is point of significance as the portfolio managers and advisors would get help in regards of advising investments as they are aware what factors impact the investment choices.

This study is novel in its nature to evaluate investment choices using the cognitive ability alongside risk attitudes and financial literacy.